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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010677" data-attributes="member: 18387">Path of Shadows by Fantasy Flight Games    Fantasy Flight Games has some of the best class books in their Path series.  Path of Shadow is no different.  It has all the new options that make the Path series great as well as catering to both the DM and PC.  The book is 172 pages and hardback.  The art in this book is very good.  It’s all black and white and there are many different artists (Mitch Cotie, David Griffith, Eric Lofgren, Hian Rodriguez, and Tyler Walpole), but there is not a single bad picture in the book.  The layout is also very good and well organized.  The table of contents is a little on the light side, but the index is very well done making things easy to find.      The first chapter is all about prestige classes.  Seventy four pages in length, this chapter not only describe many interesting classes but also organizations for each of them making them really easy to fit into anyone campaign.  One of the highlights is the Psychic Interloper.  This is a rogue prestige class that uses the psionics.  The best thing about it is it’s not in an appendix or an add one.  It’s treated like the rest of the classes.  It’s good to see psionics getting support as well as not being treated as special cases.  My favorite class is the Shadow Hunter.  It is a good aligned class of evil hunters.  They have good defenses and abilities to help against undead as well as spells.  There are simple sounding classes like the Noble Decoy.  The ideas that a class like this can set off are amazing.      The second chapter deals with Legendary Classes.  Legendary Classes are prestige classes that one has to quest for and be at least 12 the level to achieve.  The abilities of the classes are very versatile.  All the classes are five levels in length and the later ability is selected the more powerful it becomes.  There are classes like the Blood Thief that steal life, Fortune’s Fool for a character that goes beyond lucky, the Incantor that can steal spells from the air, Jack O Green the leader of a rebellion, and my favorite the Savant, a diviner of secrets.    The third chapter introducers a few new core classes.  Each of them is defined from level one to level 20 and is an interesting look at different versions of the rogue standard class.  The first is the Chameleon, a master of disguise.  They get a bonus to disguise, can disguise faster then most, a much slower sneak attack, and spells.  They have a smaller spell list then a wizard, only go up to 6th level spells, but do use a spellbook and prepare spells like a Wizard.  The Con Artist is what one would expect.  This class assesses a mark and gets certain bonuses against them.  The class does appear to be a little on the weak side, especially when away from its element.  The Delve is more of a scholar then a rogue.  They get an ability similar to Bardic Knowledge, uncanny dodge, and bonus feats.  This class also seems to be a little on the weak side.  The psychic Thief is not weak.  They have many of the good parts of the rogue as well as a good amount psionic abilities like the psychic warrior.  There are even a few new psionic powers presented in the book.          The fourth chapter deals with new equipment and weapons, new magical items, new uses for old skills (always a personal favorite area of mine), and new feats.  The mundane items are interesting, but I had hoped for a few more.  There is some simple stuff like the listening cone to more complex things like the thief’s perfume.  Magical items are great like the Book of Useful Items, the Gloves of Filching, and the Sound Catcher.  The new uses for old skills are always good as it adds new options to things the characters already have.  There some interesting feats like Desperate Interrupt for when you have to act right now, and Monkeywrencher allowing you to have a person use a magical device they normally could not use.      The fifth chapter is about schools and organizations.  These are ways for the characters to spend experience and time to get small bonuses to their characters.  The idea of spending experience is rather controversial as some people really like it and some people do not.  It’s well done here and probably the best I’ve seen.  And the section is not so large that people against using this type of thing will be missing much of the book.    Overall, this is a very good class book.  It’s focuses on the prestige classes and there are so many good ones here I could create characters for the next decade on them.  The book is all about rogues and the many different types.  A book like this really shows the versatility of that class and really is a must have for people who prefer this type of character.</blockquote>

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